


Family Fifteenth

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10514706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Written for an ask: Mulder, Scully, William, if you could give them one talent, what would it be? (Not work or school related)Fluffy AU family!fic. You have been warned.





	

Scully watched as William grimaced, biting his lip and lowering his gaze. Ordinarily, he was the most placid boy, good-natured and accepting. But since Mulder had begun to organise his birthday celebrations, William had withdrawn.  
“You can’t do that, Dad.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because it’s so embarrassing.”  
“But we started this tradition with Emily and we’re going to continue it.”  
“Mom, can you tell him. Please?”  
“William, there’s no point in arguing. Once your father’s got an idea in his mind it’s impossible to get him to change it. I remember once, when were agents…”  
“Enough of the old school memories, Mom. You’ve told me all those stories like twenty times over. I just don’t want to do this stupid talent show thing. It’s my birthday. I should be able to choose.”  
“Mom, if he gets away with it, I’m going to be super mad at you,” Emily said as she swept into the kitchen and selected an apple from the fruit bowl.  
“He’s not getting away with anything, Emily.”  
“Good, he needs to experience the total and utter humiliation of Dad doing stand-up comedy, just like I did.”  
“Oh, he’s not doing that this time. He’s planning a whole new act. And so am I.”  
“What? Mom! That thing you did with your hands was okay. It only took a few seconds and everyone thought you were pretty cool. What are you going to do this time?”  
She tapped the side of her nose. Poor William. He was so shy, so susceptible to second-hand embarrassment, that she could feel him cringing already. Emily, on her fifteenth birthday, had been unaware of what was about to unfold so didn’t have time to get the pre-birthday jitters. But William had witnessed it and had spent the last few months trying desperately to get away without having a celebration. He’d even tried to convince his friend’s parents to book a camping holiday and take him with them. But Mulder had convinced that friend and his parents to spend the evening with them, at William’s birthday party, instead.  
“It’s a bit of fun, William. You need to be able to laugh at life. This is a great way to learn that lesson.”  
“Yes,” Mulder said, walking in to join them, “your mother took years to learn how to laugh at herself. And even now she sometimes has a few issues with that. Don’t’ you, Mrs Spooky?”  
“Yeah, but she laughs at you a lot, Mulder.” Emily bit into her apple and even William managed a giggle at that one.  
“I still don’t get why our fifteenth birthdays are the ones we need to do this stupid tradition for.”  
“William, firstly, it’s not stupid when it’s a family thing. You and Emily are the best things to ever happen to us and we cherish that. And secondly, I’ve told you before that the fifteenth birthday is the one that nobody really cares about. Your teen years are in full swing. You’re not a child anymore, but you’re not sweet sixteen either. You’re trapped in a…”  
“Strange mixed-up world of childhood and adulthood when you could be just as struck by a silly cartoon or playing sandcastles on the beach as you are by the injustice of child poverty or the hellish notion of paying tax.”  
Emily recited Mulder’s words back him and he nodded with pride. “I’m impressed that you remember, Em.”  
“How can I ever forget that lecture, Mulder? I was always suspicious that you were some kind of super nerd but that little speech sealed the deal. So, little brother, you are required to attend the strange celebration that is a Mulder-Scully family fifteenth, complete with crazy performances by Fox and Dana. And you might as well practise your performance because you are not going to get away with it.”  
Scully laid out the salads and breads, while Mulder prodded the steaks. Skinner served as barman for the guests. The Gunmen had insisted on doing the music and had rigged up a system that blared out 70s rock loud enough and terrible enough to ward off the alien colonization that they still insisted would happen. Reyes kept turning it down and Doggett would sneak back and wind it back up to full blast again. William stayed close to his friends, and Emily looked frighteningly grown up in her new dress and heels. Scully took a mental photograph of the scene, smiling inwardly.  
The party rocked on after dinner and by ten o’clock it was time for the talent show. William turned a shade of green as Mulder announced he would go first. Always a light drinker, the beers had given him Dutch courage and Scully giggled with Monica as he tripped up walking through the back door to retrieve his props.  
“This is going to be so cute,” Monica said. “I heard he’s been practising for months.”  
Scully nodded. “Poor John got the rough end of the deal.”  
William’s friends pushed him forward to front row and Mulder re-appeared with a dark grey fitted tee, a pair of dark blue jeans in that tighter cut Scully loved so much, a guitar strapped over his shoulder and pink woolly hat.  
“Since Emily’s fifteenth birthday, I have taught myself to read music and to play guitar. It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do, and I have no musical bones in my body – as Scully will attest to – but I am tenacious and I wanted to prove to Emily and to William that you don’t have to be brilliant at everything, you just have to be committed.”  
Scully swallowed back tears and as Mulder looked directly at her, she smiled back at him. Her precious dork.  
“I wrote a song. Just for you, William.”  
The crowd clapped and Mulder strummed the opening bars.  
Mulder lapped up the applause and bowed several times. Scully dabbed the tears from her eyes and Emily and her friends whispered in their little group. William had his eyes wide open and his lips parted in surprise. He had turned green to white to red and back to a nice shade of pink. His friends smacked him on the back and fist-pumped. Scully knew he was impressed, he just didn’t know how to react yet. She really hoped her own performance would be just as well received.  
“Scully, it’s your turn to take to the stage,” Mulder said, theatrically waving her past him.  
She took a huge deep breath and untied the black robe she had over her costume. The crowd gasped as she stepped forward into the spotlight wearing a pink ballgown, glittered at the bodice with ruffled tulle skirt. She cleared her throat, launching into her Blanche Dubois monologue, complete with Southern twang and whiskey bottle. She got it word perfect and collapsed into a bow at the end, gasping for breath.  
Emily’s hands were clasped over her mouth and her friends were nodding appreciatively. The Gunmen gaped, Skinner clapped so loudly it sounded like firecrackers popping, Reyes put her fingers in her mouth a whistled, causing Doggett to laugh out loud. And Mulder, he simply blew her a kiss which she caught and placed on her mouth.  
“Mom, that was incredible,” Emily called from her position. “You spent too long chasing mutants and not enough time treading the boards.”  
“You do seem to have missed your calling, Scully,” Mulder whispered into her ear as he caught her around the waist and pulled her into a waltz. “You do keep me guessing.”  
“Yours was pretty spectacular, Mulder. It was a pretty tough act to follow.”  
“Well, now our son has to follow you.”  
“Do you think we should let him off?”  
“No way, Scully. We follow through in this family.”  
“You’re stubborn, Fox Mulder.”  
“And you once told me that was why you fell in love with me.”  
“Well, that and the way you look in a red Speedo.”  
William was pushed onto the makeshift stage by his cheering friends. Scully snuggled under Mulder’s arm, feeling the warmth of his body seep into her bones. They still fitted together like one.  
“My parents are pretty special,” William began.  
“You can say that again,” Langly yelled out.  
“And they are also very determined. Which has both benefits and drawbacks. I admit that I wasn’t looking forward to this party, because of this weird talent show tradition that we do on our fifteenth birthdays, but I just want to say, before I do my party piece, that my Dad and Mom are the best.”  
The guests whooped and clapped and raised their glasses. Scully sniffed back tears and Mulder hugged her tighter.  
“So, I spent a while thinking about something really short that I could do so that I wouldn’t be in the spotlight for too long, but in the end, I decided to embrace the challenge and try my hand at something I didn’t know anything about.”  
William nodded to the Gunmen, who moved with surprising speed to set up a huge monitor, connected to the sound system.  
“My parents told us lots of stories growing up, strange stories about monsters and aliens, conspiracies and victories. They told us about how Emily and I came to be. They have always told us how loved we are. I wrote it all down. Then I animated it. And this is how it turned out.”  
The movie played, opening with a young red-haired woman shaking the hand of a bespectacled, spiky haired young man. It showed a compilation of cases, some with satisfying endings, some with frightening ones. There were bug-eyed little grey men, scary-ass mutants, Skinner with a really shiny head, the Gunmen as 1930s detectives, hospitals, autopsies, vampires and haunted houses. William’s animation was a cross between cartoonish and anime. Details and flourishes brought out gasps of appreciation from the crowd. His captions were witty and his occasional voice-overs were even funnier. His imitation of Mulder yelling ‘Scullllaaaay’ as their animated selves ran through a cornfield left the audience laughing out loud.  
After a few minutes, the music switched from dramatic to romantic as a slideshow of baby photos of Emily and William played out. Finally, the music faded out as the screen filled with an image of Mulder kissing Scully on their wedding day.  
The chink of bottles being launched into the recycling caused Mulder to flinch. He sipped his coffee and enjoyed the image of Scully bending over to retrieve yet another bottle left in the camellia bush.  
“How do you continue to look so good, Scully?”  
“Cleaning up after a family fifteenth is a great work out, Mulder. Feel free to join in.” She threw a cork at him and it caught him square on the forehead.  
“You always were a better shot than me.”  
She walked up the verandah steps to the chair where he was sitting. “And you always did like looking at my ass.”  
“You speak The Truth, Agent Scully, or is that Ms Dubois?”  
She sat on his lap and kissed him. “And you, Agent Mulder, sing pretty well for an aging FBI employee.”  
“Less of the aging - you’re not that far behind. But have we created the next Steven Spielberg or what?”  
“He was amazing, in fact, last night was amazing, Mulder. Thank you for insisting that we do that.”  
“We follow through, don’t we?” he said, nuzzling into the side of her neck and enjoying the hardness of her nipples as they pushed against his chest.  
“I’ll hold you to that later, Mulder.”


End file.
